Tasmania crowned for its natural beauty

TASMANIA has been named Australia's 15th "national landscape" and will be promoted around the world as one of the country's leading ecotourism drawcards.

The state will join a select group of regions on the landscapes list, which includes iconic destinations such as The Kimberley, the Red Centre and the Great Barrier Reef.

More than 40 per cent of Tasmania's natural habitat is protected, and the island state is home to the Tarkine rainforest, Cradle Mountain and spectacular Wineglass Bay.

Federal Environment Minister Tony Burke said there was no other state where a visitor could travel coast-to-coast and see world-class natural surroundings.

"Few places are as beautiful, wild and awe-inspiring as those we find in Tasmania," Mr Burke said in a statement on Wednesday.

Tourism Minister Martin Ferguson, who joined Mr Burke in making the announcement in Tasmania, said the state had enormous tourism potential.

But Australian Greens leader Christine Milne said the environment minister couldn't promote "brand Tasmania" without promising to protect the Tarkine rainforest.

While Senator Milne was pleased her home state had been recognised for its natural beauty, she said the gesture needed "authenticity".

"We've got a minister who wants to go with the tourism and brand of nature and on the other hand not prepared to protect it," she told reporters in Hobart.

Environment groups say the Tarkine - a unique Aboriginal site and the second largest tract of temperate rainforest in the world - is under threat from a number of mining projects seeking licenses to expand exploration of the wilderness area.

Activist group GetUp, among others, has been lobbying Mr Burke to formally award the Tarkine National Heritage status to protect the region from mining interests.

In April, after GetUp collected thousands of signatures in a petition, Mr Burke spent three days kayaking and camping through the Tarkine.